My wife and I home-school our children. Michelle does all of the heavy lifting of course, but I played the leading role in choosing the philosophy of education and consequently the curriculum we would go with. I make no claim of expertise, but having thought through a few things on my own, I thought I’d share some about my philosophy of education for whoever may benefit from or improve upon my thoughts.
There is quite a lot I have thought through in terms of learning styles and various models (Charlotte Mason, Mastery, Classical, etc), but I want to focus my attention elsewhere in this post. One of the main criticisms from the public of home-schooling is that the kids will be socially backwards. For the most part I think this criticisms miss the mark. If socialism is the ability to interact on various levels with relative ease, then locking a 7 year old in a room with 30 other 7 year olds is hardly going to promote good social skills. This aside, I think that the kids will be as adjusted as their parents care to make them. Certainly there are parents who completely shelter their children and therefore their kids may not know very well how to engage strangers. But when I was home-schooled, my parents had me involved in boy scouts, 4-H, home-school co-ops, etc. I got plenty of interaction. In fact I was a very shy and introverted kid until after the time I was home-schooled. I don’t know if home-school remedied my poor social skills, but there was an interesting correlation.
Related to the question of socialism is how the parents attend the education of their kids more properly speaking. Again, there are many people who home school just because they don’t want their kids to learn about evolution and homosexuality and other such ‘forbidden” subjects. These people tend to shelter their kids intellectually just as others may shelter them socially. That is not why my wife and I decided to homeschool. We did it because we thought we could provide a superior education that way.
I don’t want to shelter my children from the world, I want to equip them for it. I can do my best to provide for them a solid creation based science education and never expose them to that evil Darwin, but I think I would be doing them a dis-service that way. Once they leave the house and maybe go to college, they will come face to face with some intelligent, articulate, winsome atheistic evolutionist (among many other philosophies and worldviews). If they have never been exposed, it may rock their world. They may have been told that evolutionists are the most incompetent numb-skulls on the planet, but when they meet an intelligent one it could rock their world. I don’t want to shelter my kids I want to equip them.
I want my kids to know evolution better than most public schooled kids. I want them reading the best of what the world has to offer. I want them to read Hume, and Freud, and Nietzsche, and Darwin. I want them reading these classics (and more) and I want them reading their modern stalwarts and popularizers. . . but I want them to do it under my watch. I want to interact on all of that material. I don’t want my kids to see a caricature. I want them to see the best that the world has to offer and why I think the Christian worldview is superior. I want them to see God’s common grace working in unbelievers. They need to recognize the insights that God has given to unbelieving mathematicians, artists, scientists, etc. I also want them to see where they err. I want them to benefit from the meat and spit out the bones. I believe in a liberal education. See here (sorry for the goofy formatting, just scroll down and squint.) http://gracemccook.org/blog/?p=270
I take a similar approach in my philosophy of education in the church. I want my people reading good books. I recommend them. I plug them. I review them. I make them available. But I also know that my people do not live in the church. They will go into the world. They will see other books (and may even read them). Friends, family, co-workers, or peers in general may give them books to read. I know that they will be exposed to less than desirable books outside of the church gathered, so I want to equip them. I want to teach them good theology and solid thoughts. But just like at home, I don’t want to merely teach them what to think, I want to teach them how to think. We need to be able to read a book charitably and benefit from the meat. We also need to be able to read critically and spit out the bones. The books that are a “mixed bag” are ones I want us to work through as a group so people can see how to spot the good and the bad.
I’m sure there are better methods and things I may have missed, but that is part of the beauty of community (even an electronic one like this). As iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. I’d be interested in hearing from you. Soli Deo Gloria!
Tags: Calvin, Common Grace, education, home school, philospohy